How to increase tactics rating???

Sort:
Avatar of rahul_967

Hello guys, I've been using tactics trainer since march of this year. i started with 990 and in 4 months my tactic rating was 1400 n then after 1 months my tactic raing is 1500.But i'm still solve tactics from next two months but my rating is not going to 1600.i don't know why???i attemted approximately 600 tactics after my rating 1500..
  i don't have any coaching class.plz tell me whats wrong with me???
here my tactics stats:
Rating: 1500.8 (RD: 34.56) (Best Active Rating: 1600 Worst Active Rating: 990)
Active Rank: 5471/11113 (Better than: 50.77% Best Active: 3962 Worst Active: 10412)
Problems Done: 3926 (Correct: 2579 Failed: 1347)
Percentage correct: 65.69%

Avatar of MrRahimlakhani

I recommend the chess camp series, and laszlo polgar's chess:training in 5334 games, positions..."

Avatar of johnnyp999

you probably have to keep trying maybe the incorrect tactics are pulling you down not 100% sure though keep asking around

Avatar of rahul_967
rahim_me_123 wrote:

I recommend the chess camp series, and laszlo polgar's chess:training in 5334 games, positions..."

u mean chess camp books???

Avatar of MrRahimlakhani

yes.., my students have been following these books with success... good luck with your learning :)

Avatar of rahul_967
rahim_me_123 wrote:

yes.., my students have been following these books with success... good luck with your learning :)

thx

Avatar of Scottrf

My only strategy is do more tactics, and it seems to be working.

Avatar of erikido23

You are probably missing some basic mating patterns.  I believe there is a series on here.  If you don't know the "basic" mating patterns then I guarantee your tactics rating will immediately go up if you learn them. 

Avatar of baddogno

Too bad you aren't a diamond member.  There are lots of tactics courses on ChessMentor that teach mating patterns and all the other tactical motifs.  By repeatedly going over the courses, you start to increase your board vision as you recognize more and more patterns.  IM Rensch also has a killer video series that covers the same material.  You've actually made pretty good progress so far so don't get down on yourself; just keep plugging away at it.

Avatar of Lucidish_Lux

I find that chess skills, and tactics in particular, tend to increase in large jumps, and plateau in between. You may stay at the same 1500 for another 2 months, and then suddenly jump to 1700. Be patient, and keep working at it. There's nothing wrong with you.

Avatar of NimzoRoy

http://blog.chess.com/ori0/how-to-improve-your-tactics-trainer-play

Go back over EVERY problem you miss until you get it right, even if you have to resort to a "brute force" search to find the solution

AND read the above blog!

Avatar of gnuvince

First of all, make sure you take your time!  This is annoying on chess.com because of the timer that contributes to deducing points, so perhaps chesstempo.com would be better, but make sure that before you make your move, you know what's going to happen next.  For some problems that you are familiar with, this may take 10-15 seconds.  For others, it may take 15-20 minutes.  That doesn't matter.  The important thing is that you learn these patterns and recognize them in the future.

Avatar of Scottrf

He is using chesstempo.

Avatar of APawnCanDream
gnuvince wrote:

First of all, make sure you take your time!  This is annoying on chess.com because of the timer that contributes to deducing points, so perhaps chesstempo.com would be better, but make sure that before you make your move, you know what's going to happen next.  For some problems that you are familiar with, this may take 10-15 seconds.  For others, it may take 15-20 minutes.  That doesn't matter.  The important thing is that you learn these patterns and recognize them in the future.

I only get to do 3 puzzles a day here being a free member, but every morning when I do those three I repeatedly say to myself "don't move until you see it, don't move until you see it..." I focus on trying to get the puzzle correct, regardless of the time it takes.

Avatar of johnrwebber

 I have had a similar problem but I have associated it with my 68 year old brain. I twice got to over 1800 but then slipped back dramatically--the second time to below 1500. I find that if I break up my 25 attempts into five groups of five then I do not get problem fatigue and I am slowly climbing up again.You are very young by comparison to me  but it might be worth trying this possible solution----BEST OF LUCK

Avatar of APawnCanDream
johnrwebber wrote:

 I have had a similar problem but I have associated it with my 68 year old brain. I twice got to over 1800 but then slipped back dramatically--the second time to below 1500. I find that if I break up my 25 attempts into five groups of five then I do not get problem fatigue and I am slowly climbing up again.You are very young by comparison to me  but it might be worth trying this possible solution----BEST OF LUCK

I've noticed that too when solving puzzles if I do to many I begin to decline dramatically in performance. I usually do the three here daily, and I have three tactical books at home I also solve, although not daily right now. And the site chesstempo is also great, I solve puzzles there occasionally too.

For me it seems like if I do a little daily instead of many occasionally, I see better understanding and remembrance. I used to spend an hour or more at a time solving puzzles but when I changed to this little but more often I noticed better retention and understanding of them.

Avatar of blake78613
gnuvince wrote:

First of all, make sure you take your time!  This is annoying on chess.com because of the timer that contributes to deducing points, so perhaps chesstempo.com would be better, but make sure that before you make your move, you know what's going to happen next.  For some problems that you are familiar with, this may take 10-15 seconds.  For others, it may take 15-20 minutes.  That doesn't matter.  The important thing is that you learn these patterns and recognize them in the future.

Taking your time is not the key to pattern recognition.  Repetition is the key to pattern recognition.  Euwe said that tactics is seeing and strategy is thinking.   Petrosian said that if you don't see a tactic in the first minute, you probably are not going to see it.  It is more efficient to use your time doing as many problems as possible than to spend your time on one problem.  Tactical training is about developing your batting eye not about thinking.

Avatar of jclheriteau

Personnally, whereas after a strategic lesson, I feel I kept something out of the learning, I am not so convinced by Tactics. Any advice here?

In tactics, I feel like doing the Yoyo in rating and I am not sure I actually get something lasting out of it...

I agree with not doingto much of them i a row and taking time to be sure of your own move.

Avatar of Scottrf
jclheriteau wrote:

Personnally, whereas after a strategic lesson, I feel I kept something out of the learning, I am not so convinced by Tactics. Any advice here?

You don't feel like you're learning patterns which keep coming up? I'm getting patterns in seconds which I wouldn't have had a clue about the first time I saw them.

For what it's worth, I agree with blake. I don't really make an effort to calculate the positions I get wrong, I just quickly look at the correct answer, try to think about the pattern and move on. My TT rating is approaching 2000 after only properly starting chess around May.

There is probably value in solving tough problems and making sure you look at all variations, but that's what I do in slow games. In tactics trainer I just try and do as many positions as possible.

Avatar of APawnCanDream
blake78613 wrote:
gnuvince wrote:

First of all, make sure you take your time!  This is annoying on chess.com because of the timer that contributes to deducing points, so perhaps chesstempo.com would be better, but make sure that before you make your move, you know what's going to happen next.  For some problems that you are familiar with, this may take 10-15 seconds.  For others, it may take 15-20 minutes.  That doesn't matter.  The important thing is that you learn these patterns and recognize them in the future.

Taking your time is not the key to pattern recognition.  Repetition is the key to pattern recognition.  Euwe said that tactics is seeing and strategy is thinking.   Petrosian said that if you don't see a tactic in the first minute, you probably are not going to see it.  It is more efficient to use your time doing as many problems as possible than to spend your time on one problem.  Tactical training is about developing your batting eye not about thinking.

Taking your time to understand the position and how a certain tactic is used in it does aid in retention of the tactic. When you study a master game you don't skim through it to understand how they made their moves and plans, instead you take your time to understand what is going on and why moves were made to learn from them. Doing tactical puzzles "quickly" doesn't help you learn it any faster. Repetition does help, but for maximum benefit of repetition you would need to do the same group of puzzles repeatedly over a period of time. I have a book that groups puzzles by tactical theme which I find useful because you can practice a certain theme and use the repetition idea more effectively. As far as the Tactical Trainer on Chess.com goes though, I don't see any benefit in doing the puzzles quickly and numerously compared to taking your time to find the best answer you can come up with for each puzzle.